george h.w. bush looking at his watch. appearances count, don't they? >> they really do. and a professional knows that. george h.w. bush in that debate, that third one in richmond in 1992, he was looking at his watch because he was trying to make the point that one of the other candidates had run over time. it didn't really compute this was sending the message that he was impatient, just the kind of message he didn't want to send. >> humor can be an effective tool, diffuse a weakness. >> i will not make age an issue of this campaign. i am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience. >> and at that moment, a lot of people said well, there's the ball game. including his opponent. >> including walter mondale. >> what do you think about humor as a tool in this debate tonight? >> you'd better be a very accomplished actor like reagan or else it probably won't work. in that case, reagan said certain things that might have given rise to further worry he was too old to serve a second term. got things wrong. ran over in his final concluding rema